Get Off On The Bus Tour: Update #1

April 11, 2007

The 2007 Burton “Get Off On The Bus” tour kicked off this weekend in California. Danny Davis, Mason Aguirre and Luke Mitrani were just finishing up with Team Challenge in Heavenly when Jack Mitrani, Keegan Valaika, Kevin Pearce and Mikey Rencz all met up with the crew. The bus pulled into the Mont Bleu Resort and the riders were all hyped when they saw photos of themselves blown up twelve feet tall on the fully wrapped Prevost XL luxury tour bus.

They knew that they were going to be spending a good amount of time on thebus so they all jumped on to check out the setup. With two living rooms,flat screen TVs, twelve beds (each with their own TV) and all the luxuriesof a high-end condo, everyone was getting stoked to hit the road.

Jeff, the tour driver, is one of those guys that after you spend an hour ortwo with him you feel like you’ve known him for years. Right away it wasclear that he had countless stories of all the tours that he has been on,from his days as the body guard for Eddie Van Halen to touring with DonnaSummers and AC/DC. This guy was definitely the right kind of driver for ourcrew. He laid down the law with a short list of simple rules including “noshitting on the bus!” and “no bus surfing!” and the boys were on their way.

The crew was hoping to go ride the new “Stash” run at Northstar-at-Tahoe but it had just closed for the season. The new plan was to go up to Sugarbowl to check out a jump and a hip that JP Martin and his crew had built up there. Everything was set to go with an afternoon cat ride up to the jump and sleds to lap the riders but when they arrived it was so windy that hats were blowing off shutting down the session. The crew was skunked at Sugarbowl so they decided to cut their losses and get down to Gardnerville to hit up a skate park before they lost light.

Blotto had been held over due to airport closures in AK, so the bus swung by theairport in Reno to pick him up then it was on to the skate park. The bus pulled up to the Herbig Skate Park just in time for everyone to have a session with a couple of local rippers and hook up a few young kids with some free stuff. When the lightwent down it was off to Jack In The Box for some dinner where the riderswere being hit up for autographs and pictures. The crew continued to head southto get down to Mammoth to do some shredding. Tonight will be the firstnight sleeping in the bus and the entire crew is looking forward to it.